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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29109102">The Ones Left Behind</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetvampire/pseuds/sweetvampire'>sweetvampire</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who &amp; Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 03:40:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,733</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29109102</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetvampire/pseuds/sweetvampire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Quiet days aren't really a thing when you're travelling with the Doctor.</p><p>When Rose drops in for a visit, there's something not right at home. The TARDIS isn't happy, and the Doctor keeps finding people who've somehow doubled back over their own timelines. The new guy in the flat upstairs isn't all that he seems either -  who is he, and how does he know Rose when they've never met?</p><p>While Rose and the Doctor start untangling a temporal mystery that spans half a century, there's another puzzle on the Powell estate... one that could turn deadly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mickey Smith/Rose Tyler, Rose Tyler/OC</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Do you ever just want a quiet day?” Rose asked.</p><p>The Doctor looked up from whatever he was fiddling with on the other side of the console, and grinned at her. “From time to time. I usually find something that needs fixing until it passes.” </p><p>He returned his attention to the gadget in his hands for a moment, paused again, looked up. </p><p>“Was that a subtle hint that you wanted to take a breather?” he asked, head tilted on one side, apparently thoughtful. “Not super great with subtle, me.”</p><p>Rose smiled. “I’d never have guessed.”</p><p>Now the Doctor’s grin was teasing. “Don’t tell me you’re tired already.”</p><p>She shot him a half-hearted attempt at a withering look. “Not all of us can be raring to go on five hours’ sleep, thank you very much. And mum’s been texting me saying there’s some girl in her flats she’s worried about.”</p><p>The Doctor pulled a face. “Blimey, she moved on from you fast.”</p><p>Rose ignored the remark and carried on. “Says she’s been hearing a lot of shouting and crying for a couple of weeks now, thinks it’s getting worse.”</p><p>“Social services?” the Doctor asked, but he’d abandoned whatever he’d been tinkering with and was now moving around, setting coordinates and pulling levers. Rose shifted back, held onto the railing with one hand, and scrolled through the messages on her phone with the other. </p><p>“Social worker’s been coming in and out, doing nothing, she reckons.” She looked up to watch him setting the flight path and wasn’t surprised to see his eyes a little harder, the teasing gone. </p><p>The TARDIS made a faint, high-pitched creaking noise, and the Doctor’s gaze flicked down briefly to the viewscreen on his left, across to another region, and then back to the viewscreen. He frowned, opened his mouth as if to ask her something, and then closed it again as the TARDIS lurched violently, creaking louder this time. Rose clung onto the railing behind her, bracing for another jolt. </p><p> </p><p>It didn’t come. They landed in a quiet corner of the Powell estate without so much as scaring a rat. The Doctor cautiously stuck his head around the door, sniffed the air, checked his watch. </p><p>“London, Earth, 2005. Seems about right.” </p><p>“What was that noise as we landed?” Rose asked, dodging past him to step out of the TARDIS. </p><p>The Doctor looked thoughtful - almost preoccupied - when he answered.  “I’m not sure. Felt like a duplicate error.” </p><p>Rose looked at him blankly. </p><p>“You know how in old books you sometimes get a line of text repeated because it’s not printed properly? You get two copies of the same words overlapping and slightly out of alignment. Like that, only instead of a line of text it’s a temporal overlap.” He shrugged. “Must have been sensor contamination. Your lot aren’t going to figure out time travel clever enough for that a while yet.”</p><p>He shook his head, dismissing the thought, and patted the TARDIS door affectionately as he locked it. </p><p>“Maybe she needs a rest as well.”</p><p>Rose hid a smile - <em> not clever enough for time travel, but apparently ‘boys and their toys’ is universal </em> - and tucked her hands into the pockets of her jacket as they walked back to her mum’s flat. Now that she was back home (well, almost) she could finally let herself stop for more than a couple of hours, and as they rounded the corner to the last flight of stairs it felt like all the tiredness was sinking in at once. </p><p> </p><p>The Doctor plonked himself on the sofa with a cup of tea and pulled a battered paperback from an inside pocket of his leather jacket, apparently settling down to catch up on some reading while she slept. She watched him for a second or two, lingering in the doorway, before he turned round to look at her. </p><p>“You alright?” </p><p>A prickle of unease made her hesitate for a second before she spoke. “When we came back - the TARDIS made that weird noise, and you looked like you were going to say something, and then it happened again.”</p><p>He frowned. “You know how I said it was a temporal overlap? Two copies of the same text, slightly misaligned. There’s something else in there as well.”</p><p>Rose felt a shudder run down her spine. “There’s something here?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” The Doctor shook his head, frustrated. “I don’t know if it’s a <em> thing </em>, or just a random bit of data that found its way into the sensors. Could be either.” She stifled a yawn, and his expression softened. “Either way, it’s unlikely to change in the next six to eight hours. Get some sleep.”</p><p>Rose glanced at the clock - half-six, her mum would be back soon - and made her way back to her room, crawling under the covers to sleep. </p><p> </p><p>Unfortunately, it didn’t last long before the shouting started from the floor above. Rose stirred, still half-asleep, and then leaned over to check the time. Quarter to ten. Her mother was shouting back from the kitchen, and the Doctor seemed to have made himself scarce. She groaned and flopped an arm over her eyes, as if that might block out the sounds of anger and upset from outside her room.</p><p>No such luck. And it didn’t sound like it was going to stop any time soon. </p><p>She reluctantly dragged herself out of bed and padded through to the kitchen barefoot for a cup of tea. Her mum was standing by the kettle, and looked up sharply as she walked in. </p><p>“It’s that bloke Gilligan upstairs,” she said, tone somewhere between gossip and apology. “Most nights now, he’s like this. I do worry about his daughter.”</p><p>“It’s Anne, right?” Rose said sleepily, leaning past her to put the kettle on. “She was a couple of years below me at school.”</p><p>“Anna,” Jackie said, unconsciously picking at the frayed hem of her sleeve. “Nice girl. Very quiet, very shy. Never talked much. You used to walk her to big school when she started year seven, d’you remember?”</p><p>Rose nodded, vaguely remembering a small girl with mousy-brown hair and glasses. In her memories, the girl was always weighed down by her school bag, jumper tatty and her shoes scuffed. “Think she used to get bullied a lot.”</p><p>There was more shouting and a volley of swearwords from upstairs. </p><p>Jackie looked up and said quietly, “Sounds like she still does.”</p><p>Rose poured boiling water into two mugs, made herself normal tea and gave her mum decaf. The shouting and swearing was abruptly cut off with the sound of a door slamming and thumping footsteps in the upstairs hallway. </p><p>In the quiet that followed, Rose would have sworn she could hear sobs. </p><p>She stayed in the kitchen and drank her tea, talking to her mum about nothing in particular. The conversation made her feel slightly better, but when she went back to bed she couldn’t sleep, shifting and turning for what felt like hours until suddenly the alarm she’d forgotten to turn off was blaring and it was apparently ten to eight in the morning. She felt like she’d barely slept, and dragged herself out of bed for a shower in the vague hope that hot water might wake her up. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Jackie had got back to the flat just after seven; the Doctor had left just before, and they’d passed each other on the stairs before she recognised him. Now, back in the TARDIS, he was taking a closer look at the readings that had come through just before the jolt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The TARDIS had identified some anomalous readings close to where he’d intended to land, and nudged things sideways a bit in case it was dangerous - it was a built-in safety mechanism, but it hadn’t gone off like that in a long time. That by itself was a cause for concern. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>However, the idea that there was more than one pattern seemed to be holding up. The anomaly seemed - on looking closer than he’d been able to do mid-flight - to be made up of two main parts, with several smaller fragments that partially overlapped. They both seemed to be centred roughly around Rose’s estate, one much stronger than the other - the bigger part of the signal looked almost like a doubling of some frequencies. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He paused, crossed the control room to the other side of the console, and started looking back across their flight path for other instances of frequency doubling. The TARDIS hummed thoughtfully, and he watched the output scrolling across the viewer, information coming far faster than human eyes could interpret. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t much - a few years here and there, a few scattered individuals that seemed to spike and fade away. But it was a start.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dawn was breaking when he stepped outside, and the estate was slowly waking up. He re-locked the TARDIS and checked his pockets for change as he started walking back to the Tylers’ flat - not much luck, but a quid was better than nothing (or the unexpected drachmas he’d found the other week). Traffic was already starting to hum in the streets, and he was sure there hadn’t been as many people in suits striding around the last time he’d been here. Presumably a lot of the flats were being sold off. He shrugged, and ducked into a newsagents’ for a packet of biscuits. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jackie had gone to work by the time he arrived, and Rose answered the door in a ripped pair of jeans and a hoodie, her damp hair hanging over one eye. She made herself some toast and he fixed two mugs of strong tea, and they sat in the living room while Rose picked at her breakfast and explained what she’d heard in the night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Didn’t get much sleep in the end,” she admitted, pushing her hair back. “He must’ve been screaming until half-eleven or so, then the door slammed and he stomped off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor idly played with the loose wrapper on the end of the biscuit packet, looking uneasy. “Your mum reckoned it was getting worse, didn’t she?” he said quietly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose nodded. “I’m gonna go up and see if she’s alright this morning. Her dad was…” She tailed off and sighed. “It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>vicious</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“D’you want me to come with you?” the Doctor asked. “In case he comes back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose shook her head. “I’ll be alright. If he comes back and it’s just me, looks like a worried girl from downstairs - if it’s both of us it looks more official and that’ll scare him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And then the kid’s going to have it even worse.” The Doctor nodded. “Alright. I think I’ve got a starting point for that temporal overlap.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose managed a tired smile. “So much for a quiet day.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>An hour or so later, as Rose headed up the stairs, she was racking her brains trying to remember what she could about the girl upstairs. Anna Gilligan had been a couple of years below her at school, so she’d been seventeen or eighteen now, halfway through or just finishing A Level exams. She’d liked school as a kid, and Rose thought back over the first few weeks of taking her to and from big school - quiet in the mornings, fizzing with excitement on the way home. They’d lost touch partway through secondary, Rose more interested in getting out into the world and Anna retreating into schoolwork. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose sighed in frustration. A lot could change in six or seven years, and the young adult who answered the door was unlikely to resemble the pre-teen she had known. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She knocked on the door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A couple of minutes later, Anna stuck her head round the door - at least, Rose presumed it was Anna. She’d changed a lot. Gone was the mousy-brown hair and the round glasses with the navy-blue plastic frames: in front of her was a young woman with black hair cut short and spiked up, wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a faded black t-shirt from some American rock band. She looked worried, and more than a little confused. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rose?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anna! Hi! You alright?” Rose smiled, trying for a confidence she didn’t really feel. “I’m back for a few days, thought I’d just drop by for a chat. Feels like I haven’t seen you properly in ages.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna did not look entirely convinced, but she let Rose inside. “I’ll stick the kettle on then. Tea or coffee?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>While Anna was finding mugs and instant coffee from the kitchen cupboards, Rose took the opportunity for a sneaky look around the flat. Not prying, not opening doors, or doing anything that couldn’t be explained as just a curious guest. Just looking. Very carefully. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kitchen was pretty clean and tidy - she guessed that was Anna’s domain - while the living room looked as if it had seen better days. None of it was out-and-out grotty or horrible, it was just… unloved. It felt like somewhere that people passed through, rather than a home. She’d been in hotel rooms where the carpet was worn and the wallpaper was peeling, and this flat had a similar feeling - no pictures on the walls, a handful of books on the shelves, a leather sofa that was cracked and faded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna called through from the kitchen. “Can you check the milk? I can never tell whether it’s off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose wandered back in, rummaged through the fridge and cautiously sniffed the open bottle of semi-skimmed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Should be good for another couple of days, I think.” She passed the milk over. “So what you up to these days? Partway through exams?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna shook her head and laughed, a little bit of spark coming back into her eyes. “Just finished ‘em. Maths went okay, chemistry I think went well, biology, who knows?” She handed Rose a mug of strong coffee. “Do you mind if we sit in my room? Living room’s a bit of a state, sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, that’s totally fine,” Rose shrugged. “Lead the way.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They sat on the bed in Anna’s room, drinking their coffee slowly and talking about how things had been - Rose had to be a bit vague about where, exactly, she’d been travelling, but Anna didn’t seem to pick up on it and just teased her about this new man she’d gone off travelling with. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You and him, then, how’s that working? You upgraded from Mickey?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No! No, honestly, it’s not like that, he’s just a friend.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna raised her eyebrows and looked at Rose over the top of her glasses. “Yeah, yeah. How’d you meet, anyway?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose hesitated. “You know all that stuff with the shop window dummies, a while back?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Anna smiled, shaking her head in disbelief. “Yeah. Mannequins coming to life, scaring the hell out of people.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Well - he was there.” Rose paused, sipped her coffee. “He saved my life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna looked at her for a moment in puzzlement, like she was waiting for the punchline. When there wasn’t one, she half-shrugged and just said, “Fair play. I’d trust him for that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On the table, her mobile buzzed. She leaned over, looked at the screen, and flinched. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose watched her, knowing that something had shifted but not sure what. “You alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna rubbed her eyes and slumped back against the wall. “Yeah. It’s just my dad.” She looked up, caught Rose’s eye, and quickly looked away again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Last night…” Rose started, and then tailed off. “You gonna be alright here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna sighed, and gave her a weak smile. “Sorry about that. He didn’t like what I’d done with my hair.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose looked at her steadily. “So he screamed for two and a half hours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean, it was a hell of a change…” Anna trailed off, looking down at her hands twisting together, and didn’t say anything for a moment or two. When she finally spoke, it was almost a whisper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh god, he’s got me doing it now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose shook her head. “Doing what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That - I’m giving you the excuses he gave me. There’s always a reason when he screams, or that’s what he likes to say. There’s always a reason for everything he does - even taking away my keys and telling me I’m too fat to have dinner.” The words were pouring out now, and Rose guessed that this was the first time Anna had had the chance to talk to someone. “I end up punishing myself because I’ve broken one of his stupid rules, I get scared and panicky over tiny stupid things and I can’t help it and </span>
  <em>
    <span>it drives me crazy</span>
  </em>
  <span>!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She was shaking by the end, hands balled into tight fists on her legs. Rose was trying not to show it, but Anna’s loss of control had scared her - almost as much as what she’d been saying. Her mum had been right, it wasn’t just at school that she’d been getting bullied; it was at home as well. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” she said softly. “It’s alright. He’s not here. You’re safe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna took a couple of deep breaths, and slowly uncurled her fists. She looked up, met Rose’s worried look, and gave her a tight, self-conscious smile. “Sorry about that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose shrugged. “It’s okay. If you need to talk, you need to talk. Are the teachers at school any better these days?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna laughed. “No chance. I don’t think they’d notice if I turned up with all my hair shaved off. Still,” she added, straightening up, “not like it matters now. You caught me halfway through packing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You leaving?” Rose said in surprise. “But - where are you gonna go?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Exams done now, I can crash with a friend until uni starts, and then it’s halls.” Anna scrubbed at her eyes fiercely with the back of her hand. “Anywhere’s better than here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I know - I’m just glad you’ve got somewhere, you’ve got a plan.” Rose hesitated, then thought </span>
  <em>
    <span>what the hell</span>
  </em>
  <span> and added, “I know my mum’s not always around with work and stuff, but she worries. Promise me if you get into trouble you’ll ring her. Tell her I said.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She leaned over to the desk and grabbed a scrap of paper and a pen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Here - that’s my number, that’s my mum.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna tucked the scrap of paper into a thin leather wallet. “If all goes well, I shouldn’t need it, but - thank you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They took the mugs back through to the kitchen and Rose glanced up at the clock on the wall over the door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When do you think he’ll be back?” she asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna thought for a few seconds. “He finishes work at half-four, usually goes to the pub afterwards, gets in around ten, half-ten?” Even talking about it seemed to put her on edge. “Warn your mum - tell her to keep the door locked just in case.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose nodded, and wrapped her arms around the younger girl. “Look after yourself, yeah?” she said as they stepped apart. “Don’t forget you’ve got my number.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I won’t.” Anna looked more determined now, more confident in what she was doing. The spark had come back into her eyes. “Let me know next time you’re back, we can get drinks or something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose smiled. “I’ll see you around,” she called as she walked away down the corridor. Her phone had buzzed with a text while she’d been there, but she hadn’t looked at it, not wanting Anna to think she wasn’t paying attention. As she’d guessed, it was the Doctor asking when she was coming back to the TARDIS. She replied - </span>
  <em>
    <span>omw</span>
  </em>
  <span> - and sent another text to her mum (</span>
  <em>
    <span>talked to anna, she’s leaving 2day, be careful tonight as her dad will b angry</span>
  </em>
  <span>). </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The Doctor looked up as the TARDIS door squeaked open. “How was she?” he asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s okay - she’s leaving today, going to stay with a friend,” Rose told him, sitting down in the chair opposite the console viewscreen. “She’s staying there for a couple months, and she starts uni in the autumn.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor still didn’t look entirely happy. “This friend, would her dad know where she was?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose shook her head. “She seemed pretty confident. I gave her my number and said to call if she got into trouble or anything, and I gave her mum’s as well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That seemed to let the Doctor relax a bit. “Can’t say she’d be the first person I’d think of in times of strife.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose heroically resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him. “She worries about Anna, too. She’s not daft, she knew what was going on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor looked about to say something, and then TARDIS made an urgent-sounding chirp. He darted around the console and peered at the viewscreen for a second and grinned triumphantly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ha-ha! Got something.” He started setting up a flight path, pushing buttons and pulling levers. “I’ve been looking for local temporal repeats, starting with the big one that jolted us on the way here, and trying to trace it back to a point of origin. It’s like it’s rippled </span>
  <em>
    <span>back </span>
  </em>
  <span>through time.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So the signal’s coming from the future?” Rose finished. “How does that work?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Events are preceded by smaller events, right?” the Doctor said, taking off the handbrake and launching the TARDIS into flight. “Like little shocks before a big earthquake. You can either see those smaller events as building blocks for the big one, or you can see the big event as causing the little ones, even though it hasn’t happened yet. People impose a narrative on a sequence of events after the fact.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where are we heading?” Rose asked, hanging onto the edge of the seat and trying to roll with the TARDIS as it tumbled through the vortex. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just a quick hop really - still Earth, about six months forward, Cardiff.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose pulled a face. “Cardiff?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The whole city’s built on a rift, remember? It’s a scar now, nothing like it was, but all sorts of stuff still falls through the gap.” The Doctor leaned over, twisted one of the dials all the way to the right and flicked down the two switches above it. “Like the outer-space equivalent of looking down the back of the sofa and finding a pen, a sticky sweet, £5.13 in change, and never the thing you’re actually looking for.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose snorted at the analogy. “And instead of broken pens and loose change, we get… aliens. Or robots.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or energy,” the Doctor added. “Same kind of energy the TARDIS uses. So while we’re out looking for” - he consulted the sticky note attached to one of the thick spines of the control column - “Claire Spinner, the TARDIS can be refuelling.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“You think it’s running out of energy?” Rose asked, suddenly finding it impossible not to imagine the TARDIS engines cutting out mid-flight, leaving them… She shuddered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor shook his head. “Nah. The TARDIS can draw energy from just about anything if it needs to - but it’s like the difference between eating at a nice restaurant and eating the last tin of beans at the back of the cupboard.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They landed in a quiet corner of what looked like a well-kept park - it was late afternoon outside, and chilly. Rose poked her head around the door and quickly ducked back inside to grab a thicker coat. The Doctor seemed impervious and strode out in the leather jacket he usually wore. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Signal’s not that strong, but it was the closest one I could get a fix on,” he told her as they got back onto the paved path and started walking. “We’re heading for the University’s microbiology labs, because Claire Spinner has somehow managed to figure out how to be an undergraduate and a postdoctoral researcher at the same time. Very clever, very not possible.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The building loomed up in front of them, all hexagons and polished glass. The side entrance was decidedly less imposing, and they threaded their way through to the reception from there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I help you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The young man behind the desk looked bored out of his mind, idly tapping a pen with the hand not occupied by a phone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor put on his best official look. “Hi, yeah, we’re visiting from another university, we’ve got a note from the Dean” - he flashed the psychic paper at the receptionist - “saying that we’re welcome to have a look around the lab and he’s going to meet us there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The receptionist waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the door. “Wet labs on the first and second floor, lecture theatres mostly ground floor, offices depends on which lab they run.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nice guy,” the Doctor muttered while they climbed the stairs to the first floor. “Really takes pride in his job.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose shrugged. “Be fair, he probably doesn’t get paid much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor sighed. “I doubt there’s much job satisfaction, either.” He brightened. “Still. Bored people don’t ask awkward questions.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The lab was pretty quiet when they eventually found it, after a couple of wrong turns on the stairs and a detour via the department library to print something. (The printer was not impressed with psychic paper, even <em>more</em> unhappy about the sonic screwdriver, and they left quickly before anyone realised that it might need some new parts.) </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two white-coated researchers were working inside, talking animatedly about some reaction mechanism drawn on the glass window of a fumehood; another was sat outside working at a computer, surrounded by printouts of journal articles covered in neon highlighter and scribbles. She was wearing headphones, and under the hum of extractor fans Rose could just about make out the sound of tinny music from the speakers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor walked up and tapped the researcher on the shoulder. “Excuse me - I’m looking for Doctor Claire Spinner, do you know her?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman flinched at the unexpected touch before she recovered, slipped the headphones off and paused the music. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh god, sorry! Made me jump - I didn’t hear you.” She gave them an apologetic smile, fiddling with the plastic-covered wire of the headphone jack. “I’m Dr Spinner. Can I help you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. “Yeah - there’s this undergrad, right, and they really want to get into academic research here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Claire laughed. “Can’t imagine why.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor smiled in sympathy. “I can imagine. Heavy workload, low pay, long days, and then your supervisor gets the credit, am I right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Claire shrugged, half-smiled. “All that and more, and somehow it’s still worth it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But this student, they’ve set their heart on working here. Would they be able to get a tour, or a summer placement, or something? You know, not real research, but I know the department runs some summer work for the keen ones. Is that something you’d know about?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Claire frowned. “Not my area, but in principle, I don’t see why not. We’re not working with anything massively dangerous here. I’d just need to know the student’s name so I can get in touch with them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In answer, the Doctor handed her a piece of paper: a first-year class of 2004 set, six rows of photographs and names with one individual circled in yellow highlighter. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Claire Spinner.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The researcher looked a little shaken, but she laughed it off. “Okay, so we have the same name. So what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor shook his head. “Not just the same name. Same data with the university, same prescription in your glasses, even the same scar on the pad of your left thumb.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Claire visibly flinched at that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you must have been warned not to meet yourself, because that’s a paradox.” The Doctor was still speaking calmly and evenly, no trace of anger in his voice. “But even with all of that, why? Because this little world, these people, change </span>
  <em>
    <span>so </span>
  </em>
  <span>fast even in five or six years. So why come back? Why live that again?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Claire was very tense now, lips pressed together in a thin line. “I think we should discuss this somewhere else.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor brightened. “There’s a chippy down the road, that do?”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Over three paper parcels of chips, Claire asked quietly, “How did you find me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look, we just want to help,” Rose said, watching as Claire toyed uneasily with the edge of the paper. “There’s got to be a better way of dealing with whatever made you come back than… this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Claire shook her head, pushed hair out of her eyes. “God - I was so </span>
  <em>
    <span>young</span>
  </em>
  <span> - and I feel so stupid now but it felt like the world was ending. I thought it was over. And then - it came.” </span>
  <span>Her eyes were wet and distant, staring somewhere far away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened?” the Doctor asked gently. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Claire didn’t speak for a moment or two. When she did, her voice was soft and strained. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My girlfriend - she was in a car accident. It told me I could go back and change things, but it went wrong, I went too far - “</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She dissolved into tears, shoulders shaking. Rose squeezed her hand gently, wanting to comfort her, but not quite sure how. When Claire had gathered herself together enough to speak, she was slower and more careful. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It said it could take me back to a week before the accident. I’d have to hide somewhere, find the driver, make sure they didn’t get in a car that night, and my girlfriend would be okay. But something went wrong. I got sent back too far, years instead of days, and now” - she shrugged helplessly - “now I’m stuck here. In my own past.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor sighed and gave Rose a pointed look. “Trying to avoid tragedy is the history of the human race. The difference is there aren’t usually aliens interfering.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did it look like, sound like?” Rose asked. “Anything you can remember.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Claire shook her head. “It was too bright to look at for long. It wasn’t scary or anything, it was just… I almost didn’t want to look.” The distant look came back into her eyes for a moment. “It sounded kind.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor looked thoughtful. “We can’t fix what happened. We can’t change the flow of events.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Claire opened her mouth, about to argue, and Rose stepped in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I tried to save my dad, you know? He died when I was a baby, and I wanted to go back and meet him. Some normal man’s life, no problem, right? Almost destroyed the world.” She took Claire’s hand in her own, waiting for the older woman to meet her eyes. “Some things are </span>
  <em>
    <span>fixed </span>
  </em>
  <span>and you can’t change them no matter how much you want to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then what can you do?” Claire asked, frustrated and saddened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We could take you forward, back into the right part of your own timeline.” The Doctor watched her, waiting. “You can’t save your girlfriend, but you can save yourself.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They took Claire home - it felt weird to Rose, taking someone ‘home’ to her future. Claire had gone back to 2004 from 2015, and she almost wished they had more time to talk, find out what had happened in the previous ten years. How technology had changed, whether the rules of society had drastically shifted. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She remembered Adam, and didn’t ask. Some things you were better off not knowing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was on the way back that it happened again: at the first faint high-pitched creak, Rose shifted back and tightened her grip on the railing. The Doctor heard it too, had enough time to look up from the viewscreen and across the room to her, and they both braced for the jolt. It was stronger than it had been before, hard enough to rattle some of the delicate components of the console. Rose clung on to the railing and tried not to think about the noise coming from a distant part of the TARDIS that sounded unsettlingly like breaking glass. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Doctor was already moving before the second jolt hit, changing their trajectory and trying to find somewhere safe to land. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You alright?” he asked, once the room had stopped shaking and the alarms from the main console had fallen silent. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.” Rose nodded, taking a few cautious steps to look over his shoulder at the viewscreen. “What was that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Another temporal overlap. Frequency’s different, though - suggests a bigger time difference, if it’s from the same source.” The Doctor straightened up, rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “The amount of energy you’d need to displace something this much, though… not to mention the potential left behind.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose frowned. “Potential for what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Think of a weight on a slope. As it moves down the slope it has, or gains, kinetic energy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He checked his watch, glanced at the viewscreen again, and then led the way out of the TARDIS. It felt like early autumn, Rose thought, looking around; the air was warm and still, sunlight streaming through the trees dotted seemingly at random on either side of the road. The Doctor locked the doors behind him and caught up with her; the alley where they’d landed was dark and narrow, but the street it led onto was wide and well-maintained. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you supply enough force to counteract that and start pushing it back up the slope, kinetic energy is converted into potential energy.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose nodded. “GCSE Physics, yeah, I remember that. Energy can’t be destroyed, you can only change it into another form. You let go of the weight, potential goes back to kinetic, slides down the slope.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Top of the class.” He grinned at her. “So if you pick someone up from the year 2015 and drop them in 2005, the potential of the time they would have lived is the potential energy of our weight on the slope.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rose frowned. “Hang on. I’ve been travelling with you, we’ve gone to the year five billion - why isn’t this affecting me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...Good question.” The Doctor looked thoughtful as they started to walk down the road. “The TARDIS should be able to compensate for most of it - it uses the information about where we’ve travelled to keep track of how time is progressing for you in comparison to your mum and Mickey. That’s why when you call your mum it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>after </span>
  </em>
  <span>you’ve left and not before.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He made a note to himself to check the next time they landed on Rose’s estate that the TARDIS was keeping track of the timelines properly. The last thing they needed was temporal drift. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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